Thanks to WesleyHowe without whose insight into Sims 3 object creation this tutorial couldn't have been written (at least not by me).

If anyone spots errors in the tutorial please post them in the thread so I can fix the tutorial. If anything isn't clear ask any questions in the thread. Please don't PM me questions because if you're wondering it is almost certainly the case that other people are too.

The tutorial includes a Word document and a folder of pictures which illustrate the steps.

The tutorial assumes some experience with the tools s3oc, s3pe, and ObjTool. but not much.

Edit : Ok, that answers my previous question : edit both the MLOD and the MODL (plus the TWO material files in each). Thanks OM, I'll try it tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get some real glass instead of… nothingness, lol.
I was only editing one material file in the MLOD. Figures.

I'm glad that people will find the tut useful. I should have posted in the initial post that people experienced with the tools might want to skip down the tutorial a little because the first part is basically just about how to export the MLOD and MODL that need to be edited.

Jonesi, how do I add the tut to the Wiki? And should I do so right away or wait for some feedback from people who have tried the tutorial and found it useful?

Reporting back : While I've been able to make the small topiary translucid (success !), I've had no luck with 2 custom meshes so far. I end up with an invisible object and it's shadow.
If I may point that out : so far, success has been only achieved with cloned game objects (no change of mesh), right ? We may be missing something that has to be changed too in the case of custom meshes...
(though... why ? I wouldn't think it should be different, but then I don't know much either...)

I would read your brand new tutorial but the word doc was made with the new version 2007 I think... and I cant' open it!!! You should save it in an older version. I did that last year at my work. (I personally have version 2003!)
I will then right now discover your picures and how I understand.

If you upload as PDF and post the link here I can add it into the first post so that people can select that version if they prefer.

OM

Edited to add: HT, this is why I thought it might be premature to add this tut to the Wiki. We're too early along in glass texturing to be providing some definitive tutorial on the subject IMO.

Anyway, after reading your post I tried to make one of my own objects all glass. I chose a small round coffee table. I edited its MLOD and MODL but I must have forgotten to save because the first time I got it into the game it was still solid...ok...so I'm blonde and need more coffee this am...lol!

Next I just re-used that package...I re-exported its MLOD and MODL and edited them. Recompiled, imported, fixed, and replaced the first version with this new edited one.

Strangely, *both* glass versions showed up even though there is only one package named glass coffee table in my Mods folder???? What's up with that?

Even more strange is that they look different. The first (and I know it is the first because I changed the name the second time around with s3oc) is invisible and only the shadow is showing. The second has this oddly shaped thing for the bottom which is, indeed, taking a glass texture but is not the shape of the original table. Meanwhile, the top of the table is completely invisible from every angle.

Here is a picture of the three tables:

The shape of the second...that conical sort of shape, is the same shape I see when I try to place the visible table in the same space occupied by another object in the game...it flickers to a shadowy version and alters its shape to that cone.

I have multiple questions about all of this. First, why should I have two glass versions when I told the Monkey to replace the first glass version and when I look in the Mods folder it appears that it did so?

Second, given that both versions are, for some reason, in there, why do they look different when they share the same code for glass?

Third, why is the table taking on that strange shape at the bottom and why is the top missing entirely?

The answers to these questions are beyond me. Hopefully someone with a lot more understanding of things than I have (hmmm...who might that be?) will happen along and give the problem a look-see.

Thank you so much for this tutorial Orangemittens!!
Well I can not read it, have to wait for the pdf, but I checked out the pictures and can see the tutorial will be a step-by-step.
If I have understand it correct, when you want to make only part of your object glass, that part needs to be on a seperate group in your mesh, and have its own texture?
Well, I'll have to wait and read the tutorial first.

I was thinking, maybe it would be a good idea to make a list of all the objects in the game, with the number of groups, recolorable parts etc., where we all can contribute too.
There is such a list for TS2 in the CEP. And Buggybooz started a list of good clonable objects on the Wiki, maybe we can add to that one?

I mean we can fill in some kind of report on an object, we have cloned and used, like Buggybooz started.
It could be very handy to check out, if we need an object with extra groups/textures or slots and placements.
Just a thought

I think at this point if you want only part of the object to be glass the important issue is going to be to select a clone that has more than a single object group. That is, when you look at the object's info using the ObjTool, there has to be more than one group listed there for the MODL, and more than two groups (object and shadow groups) for the main MLOD. Otherwise, when you edit the code, the entire object group will turn to glass regardless of how you mapped it.

I love your idea of making a master list of objects. It would save much time if there was such a thing. This is a very good idea!

added note on needing bone assignments and included one pic missed out

reduced file size and combined in one pdf file

=========================

Here you go, OM.
I have cropped and resized some pictures so as not to disrupt the reading flow with uneven sizes, hope it's OK...

Let me know if I've input any pictures in error.

ps:
1. have split the files into 2 pdf in separate rar files - filesize went up to > 5mb after all pictures are in (lol my tut is at 7mb am I'm still not done)
2. files might not show up yet. have problem uploading. I'll keep trying, maybe wait for off-peak

OM, I got the left-most result (on your pict), while trying to glassify my deco horse and the elephant. Invisble + shadow (and also that sate makes objects very difficult to impossible to select, depending on where you place them, so be careful ^^. I placed the invisible horse on a mantlepiece and could never select it anymore -__-).
I noticed both time that the material file n°9 for the model also had the shader info in it, so i changed that too, but no success.

The result are weird, for your table... That's an understatement . One other strange thing was my thumbnail for the glassify objects : it was either invisible, or there was a slight almost invisible weird shape (not at all the shape of the object). And I did get the ghost too, like you, when you try to place them at first...

Hiya!
I tried following your tutorial and I am getting the following error when I try to recompile
ERR: Invalid version value count on tag line 10 of 12.
Am I doing something wrong I followed your tutorial through and double read it I am trying to make a candy dish I made into all glass.

Then
- I replaced the topiary mesh by a simple box that I made with topiary MLOD mesh opened in Milkshape (> I didn't import an already made mesh, just created a box, put it over the topiary and deleted it), copied it over to the MODL too. That worked also, I had a glass box in the game.

Then
- I went back into that same MLOD and MODL and NOW imported a mesh from outside. Copied etc.
Back to the invisible object with a spot shadow.

Scratching my head...
Which is why I'd really like to know the exact steps Killc*a took for the beautiful vase...

Hmm, I once had this invisible-object issue when I was trying to create a cocktail glass with a lemonslice and straw. (I didn't know all this glassifying info back then.) That object had 2 different kinds of glass, maybe they clashed, I have no clue, I never finished that one.

Lemon, yes maybe it's a question of choosing the right clone...
Jillian, may i ask what you used as a base ? And was there anything specific to your mesh that you can think ok ? (Sorry for all those question -__-)

Ty hazuitokage
sure you can ask I used the perfume bottle as my base clone I didn't move the shadow group up as the first group as I tried that before and the game only showed black shadowy texture but the object was invisible.